Eagletarian Blog

Eagles president Joe Banner called this past season "a mixed bag" during an interview with the team Web site and said it was "very disappointing and frustrating" to go another season without a championship.

He also acknowledged "there is a gap there" between the Eagles and the Cowboys based on the Birds' losses in the regular-season finale and the playoffs. However, he cautioned the gap might not be dramatic as it appears, just as he said the gap was not as large as it seemed when the Eagles beat the Cowboys, 44-6, in the regular-season finale in 2008.

Asked to evaluate the season, Banner said, "It’s difficult to make the playoffs, sustain the level of injuries we did, see the team play as hard as we did and not feel some satisfaction in that. At the same time, we are singular-minded in this goal we have. There is only one thing to focus on and achieve and we certainly haven’t reached that goal another year. That’s very frustrating, and disappointing. We have got to go back and look at what we can do and try to figure out how we can get back."

As for the Cowboys, he said, "The truth is, when you lose that solidly, and Andy says this and people think he’s not really giving them a lot of information, but I think this says everything, they must have beat you in a lot of different phases. Whether they are talking about the caliber of play, the scheme they used, who showed up that day or how healthy they stayed or all of the above. When you lose 20-17, it could have been the bounce of the ball or somebody having a good day that day. When you lose that soundly twice in the span of six days, then you have to look at all of the aspects that go into the game and objectively evaluate what areas you need to upgrade to be able to change the outcome of the game … I don’t think the difference is as dramatic as one may think just looking at the scores of those two games but there is a gap there. We have to figure out how to close that gap and be ready to go next year.

Banner said he expected the NFC East to be the toughest division in football next season, which he said was a good thing because the players realize the team is not going anywhere without winning the division.